Racing

Norman “Bubby” Jones was an American short-track racing icon, an open-wheel master whose trail of victories dotted the map and led him, ultimately, to the Indianapolis 500. A genuine blue-collar driver, Jones for a time supplemented his racing income with part-time wages earned as a barber in his native Danville, Illinois. But once his career … Read more

 In the seventh episode of “Tim Coffeen Talks Indy Car and Racing History,” Tim looks back at his relationship with driver Jan Opperman, an American racing legend who left us way too soon. Opperman was a competitive racer, but also a man of the cloth, and those two seemingly opposite interests were quite unusual in … Read more

In retirement, do we always seek the refuge of our favorite golf course or the comfort of that familiar rocking chair? While Tim Coffeen has retired from Indy Car racing, he has never truly retired from the challenge of working on race cars. In Tim’s case, rocking chairs and golf clubs have been replaced by … Read more

It was 2002 and driver Cristiano da Matta roared to the CART championship with the Newman-Haas race team. With seven wins and seven pole positions, it was a glorious season for the Newman-Haas crew. However, Tim notes that this was also the last great year for the CART series with the schism between the Indy … Read more

In 1993, team owner Carl Haas both surprised and shocked the Indy Car world by importing the reigning Formula One champion, Nigel Mansell, to join the Newman-Haas organization. It was a bold and unprecedented move, but how would the existing crew react to working for a world-famous driver who literally had no experience on oval … Read more